Chipotle Queso: Liquid Gold or Cheesy Trash?

I’m on the record as saying that queso is the greatest value in American dining. You can walk into any Mexican or Tex-Mex joint, order a queso and fruity drink, plow through eight baskets of free chips, and walk out of there a happier, drunker, and only slightly poorer man. So when woke fast-food chain Chipotle announced that they were going to start offering queso this week, I was intrigued. HIGHLY INTRIGUED.

Please note that I’m not a blind Chipotle loyalist. Quite the contrary. Even prior to poisoning local hippies with norovirus, Chipotle had already staked its claim to being one of the more insufferable chain restaurants in America, putting Jonathan Safran Foer missives on their drink cups, claiming their food is locally sourced when not all of it is, and pretending their food is good for you when a single Chipotle burrito can run up to 1,500 calories and turn your rectum into a water balloon. CEO Steve Ells is essentially a fast-food version of a tech bro, fussing over stools and presenting a relatively straightforward business idea as something world-altering, all while gobbling up nearly $16 million in salary last year alone, despite the chain’s repeated food-safety issues. Like Google, Chipotle is one of those “do no evil” companies that probably does a whole lot of evil shit.

Plus the lines are long.

Nevertheless, I was undeterred. Even though Twitter reviews of the Chipotle queso ranged from “TRASH” to “worse than the Samsung Galaxy Note 7,” I was hell-bent on forming an objective opinion by going to my nearest Chipotle and stuffing myself like a walrus.

I got there real early, because this Chipotle is next to the local high school and those kids flood the joint at 11:20 sharp and have NO spatial awareness of any kind. They are weeds. So I walked in at 11, asked for the queso, and was given a sad little plastic cup of queso flecked with bits of red and green. Chips were extra. When I asked for chorizo in my queso, they looked at me like I was from fucking Mars. I was told combining the two would simply be too complicated, so I was given my chorizo on the side, also in a sad little plastic cup. Together with chips and a small drink, I was out nearly nine bucks. Again, evil.

I asked for a paper cup with which to mix my queso and meat, and again they looked at me like I was a freak. I’M NOT WEIRD, YOU GUYS ARE THE ONES WHO ARE WEIRD, MAN. Meat and queso are normal everywhere else on the planet. Then I sat down and MacGyver-ed my own queso bowl, dumping the chorizo in first and then dribbling hot cheese all over it. Then I dipped my chip in and…

People, this was perfectly fine queso. It was expensive and delivered in awkward fashion, but I ate the whole thing. Now, I’m not from the Southwest, nor am I from Mexico, so I haven’t attained the kind of Mexican food snobbery that would probably deem this queso substandard, or perhaps OFFENSIVE. Shitting on bad Mexican food represents 10 percent of the California GDP. But I licked that paper cup clean. The adage about pizza and sex is true for me and queso: Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty terrific to me. I can also report that I have not yet shat my brains out, but I’ll update this post as necessary if such toilet antics come to pass.

Should you go out of your way to eat Chipotle’s queso? Probably not, especially if there’s a local Tex-Mex joint around that you already like. Is it worth your money? Probably not. Is it worth standing in line and awkwardly asking for a cup of meat on the side? Again, probably not. But if you ever find yourself in a true queso emergency, bereft of magma-hot cheesy goodness and with few options, this will do. Queso will always do. Queso is what makes everything in the world right again.